I'm not familiar with Blender's particle system but the general principles are the same: the particle system, the particle emitter, # of particles emitted per second, speed, direction disbursement, mass, lifespan and the particle itself.

The gist about particle systems can be found here.

Assuming that Blender's particle system is primitive at minimum, you can place the particle system right where the gun barrel is and align it so particles will emit out of the cannon.  If it has a disbursement angle setting, set it to zero because the lasers should be firing straight and not in multiple directions (up to you, though).  Everything else (speed, size, lifespan, etc.) you can specify.  As for the laser bolt, that's depends.  I went with a elongated sphere with a aura glow around it.

I'm not sure where I'm coming from myself.  But after some thought, here's what I have: You should be asking me why LEGO at all?  Why not human models, why not realistic textures and detailed buildings and creatures that weren't from a MLCAD file?  Thing is, I'm not an artist in that sense.  I'm all about round numbers and perpendicular angles so I couldn't sculpt the Venus de Milo in CGI if I wanted to.  I was certainly a purist when I started doing brickfilms in CGI, but things change (disproportionate models, altered pieces).  Besides, if you think about: There are custom guns made just for LEGO.  So why not custom lightsaber hilts that look realistic (actually, I modeled the hilts for a minifig's hand and the ignition tip to fit the bar piece, so they're not that realistic).  I'm sure people have altered their pieces to fit their needs in animation (makes me cringe sometimes to see a chopped up handle being used as a gun, or a clone trooper helmet altered for a Clone commando fig).  Plus, without that minifig head on your Vong, it wouldn't be all LEGO.

Basically, I want to create a brickfilm, but couldn't in stop-motion, so I do it in CGI, and took some creative liberties on certain things (scaled up ship models, altered hair pieces, custom lightsaber hilts, etc.).

What's your reason for unrestricted neck and shoulder movement and scale down round bricks as Kit Fisto's dreads?  I guess it's all about personal style among CGI brickfilmers.  There are those who want the models to look as real as possible (gaps between bricks for instance), some want every element to be in brick (from fire to blood) or just the figs to be brick and everything else created from scratch, and most don't stick to 1:1 scale ratio (obviously you don't want to make a Venator-class Republic Star Destroyer to scale with a minifig).

We are impressionist of the brickfilming art.

Last edited by Lechnology (March 22, 2010 (03:34am))

Good response, lots in there. Let's see if I can respond.

Actually, that was what I was trying to ask. For example, in your video (the whole point of the thread) you have minifigs, but that is it. So, to simplify the question, is that because it is a test that you have no LEGO environment or is that something you plan to use in the future?

(On re-watching, I see that one of your props is made out of LEGO. My bad.)

I think you might be surprised by the amount of LEGO pieces I was able to stick on that guy. Check out the mid-section, the back "things" (no idea what to call them), and the hands and feet. And always during designing/modeling him I tried to keep in mind that I'm creating a brickfilm. It has to have a LEGO feel or I should give up on that project and switch over to another style. Realistic, cartoon, whatever. Just not LEGO.

I haven't actually decided yet on how my minifigs will move. Unrestricted movement allows me, of course, to animate more. But then if that is what I'm aiming for, as I said above, I should be looking elsewhere.

I'll say again I'm not trying to attack your stuff in anyway. Just enjoying the chance to talk a little CGI Brickfilm "philosophy"

Just two small questions by themselves for you on particles Lech. Here's number one: How do you make all of the particles origionate from the middle of an object. I made a (really) rought particles test and that, besides number two, was the only think I didn't fully get perfect, although it's near-perfect, it's not much away from the center.

Number two: How to I get the particles to change angles along with the cannon of emitter? Say the fighter was swooping down for an attack run, but wait! The blaster bolts are flying perfectly lateral and not one hits it's target, even though the cannon is pointed straight for it! How would I solve this in an actual animation?

Okay, my mom's on the desktop computer right now, and that's the computer I do all of my 3D stuff on, so I can't post any render picture at the moment, but she'll probably get off in a half an hour or so, maybe longer though. I never thought of scaling it down or parenting anything though, I was too busy looking for how to solve it in the particle emitter itself!

[Offtopic] I really like the Vong minifig you made there James. It looks so good that it makes me want to make something similar to it myself.

So I'm assuming that you go parenting to work? (select one object, select a second object, that second object is the parent, Ctrl+P to parent).  For a fast moving ship shooting bullets or lasers, obviously, the bullets/lasers have to move faster than the ship so you'll have to clarify on the particles following the emitter.  In general, the particles have to be moving very fast.  However, I've noticed Blender has a max on the speed of the particle at 200.  Hmm...